Former Soviet citizens in Wehrmacht or other Third Reich organizations or captivity.

Friday, December 28, 2012

ROA/Schuma

A harsh fate awaited
those who had joined the Vlasov Army, a force comprising several divisions of
Russian soldiers armed by Germany to fight against the Red Army. The group had
been organized by General Andrei Vlasov, the hero of the Battle of Moscow, who
had been captured in 1942. Vlasov and several of his chief subordinates were
hanged in the Lubyanka in 1946. A picture of the executed men hanging from
gallows was found in Joseph Stalin's desk after his death.

If we say that ROA was nothing but armed forces subordinated
to the Vlasov’s KONR, you are right saying no ROA units were deployed in the
West. The 1. ROA Div (600. Div according the German numbering) was engaged in
combat in March and April 1945 in the lower Oder area; the 2. ROA Div. and 3.
ROA Div. (being formed) have not even reached the frontline.

If we say that ROA was a general term often used to describe
Russian volunteer formations, you are wrong. By late summer 1943 there were
around 40 batallions scattered across armies, corpses and divisions from the
Finnish border to the Ukraine. Since May 1943, all these units were obliged by
the OKW order to wear ROA badges. On Oct 15, following a number of defections
which infuriated Hitler, all these units were ordered to be moved to the West.
The process was completed by late 1943. According to the OKW order, ROA
batallions were to form a third or fourth batallion within a German regiment.
Their operations were supervised by the newly-formed „Kommando der
Freiwilligenverbande beim Oberbefehlshaber West” in Paris (gen. von Wartenberg,
since June 15 gen. von Niedermeyer). These units, still with their ROA badges
(have photos!) were engaged in combat in the West. In many allied memoirs from
Normandy you might read how surprised the Americans were when discovering that
the Germans they had just captured spoke Russian.

#

The SS recruited Schuma-battalions of militia/police which
became often part of the Waffen-SS (15, 19, 20, 29 Divisions). The Tatar Schuma
battalions (8 of them) serving in the Crimea were formed into a
brigade/waffenverband after they were removed from the Crimea in 1943. There
were at one stage 170 Schuma battalions but many were disbanded before they
were formed into Waffen-SS divisions. Also present were Schuma-Einzeldienst
which served as village/town police forces but were increasingly armed. The
total for both battalions and individuals was placed at 300,000 at the end of
1942 by the head of German police Daluege, this including battalions. The
Schumas were very important to the SS and helped at the front and in the rear,
in Army Group North Schuma battalions serve in the frontline as early as the
winter of 1941-2. Munoz details the formation of numerous regiments of Latvian,
Estonian and Lithuanian police and border guards which served outside the
Baltic SS divisions in 1944 and often in the frontline. Some were under the
300th Division Staff at Narva. Kaminski's Brigade was eventually taken into the
Waffen-SS for a while but was 12 battalions of militia in 1943 under loose Army
control (2nd Panzer Army, then 9th Army), see Munoz' volume on Kaminski (also
Axis Europa) for more. There were other interesting small units part of the
Abwehr like Sonderverband Bergmann, if you want to learn more read Hoffmann's
works.

The actual formation of divisions boiled down to twelve plus
four brigades: the 600th Infantry, 650th Infantry, both of the Vlasov ROA army,
the 162nd Turkish Infantry, the 300th Division Staff of Estonians, the 1st and
2nd Cossack, the 14th Waffen-Grenadier 'Galicia' Div, the 15th and 19th Latvian
SS, the 20th Estonian SS, the 29th and 30th Waffen-Grenadier Divisions (both
more like brigades) plus the 599th Russian ROA Infantry Brigade and Cossack
'Plastun' Infantry Brigade, finally the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps (KKK!!!) which
reached 4000 men and 4 battalions in late 1943 but sunk in strength after that.
Prior to the existence of any of the above there had been the Experimental
Formation Center (Versuchsverband Mitte) or RNNA which was broken up into four
600-series Ost Battalions on the order of Field Marshal von Kluge in November
1942. The numbering of those battalions is confused in several sources by
historians.

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About Me

Mitch Williamson is a technical writer with an
interest in military and naval affairs. He has published articles in
Cross & Cockade International and Wartime magazines. He was
research associate for the Bio-history Cross in the Sky, a book about
Charles 'Moth' Eaton's career, in collaboration with the flier's son,
Dr Charles S. Eaton. He also assisted in picture research for John
Burton's Fortnight of Infamy.
Mitch is now publishing on the WWW various specialist websites combined
with custom website design work.